~and I'm a better human being~
The door to being a teacher continues to close for me, quite rapidly at times and as it does, a sobering fact always comes to mind. I've been a teacher for more years than some of my colleagues this year at Liberty Elementary School have even been alive.
I've been around a while. Actually make that a very long while.
When all is said and done, I will have spent considerably more than half of my life in the field of education. Actually if you look at it another way in consideration of the time spent in the classroom as a student as well as being a teacher, I've been at it since the fall term of 1960. I guess I might as well say that all of my life has been devoted to learning and sharing that knowledge with others who have called me their "teacher".
I hope in one form or another that I can still continue to learn even when my things are packed up and boxed away when the last day in the classroom finally arrives. What a shame it would be to break a streak of learning that was born in a tiny kindergarten classroom back in the small south central Kansas community of Burrton in September of long ago.
Never in my wildest of dreams did I think that I'd be a teacher for this many years. My hope was always to stay just long enough to have made a difference and then leave when I was at the top of my game. I didn't want to be the teacher who should have retired last year but did not. Having retired initially in 2010 from Kansas, my days in the classroom since then have been an even greater blessing than the many I had experienced before. Retiring and then returning to the classroom has reminded me to never take a teaching assignment for granted, something that I had done before.
I have zero regrets when I look back to the places that I've been, the students I have taught, and the families who have been such a joy to know in 4 states and 7 different school districts since 1979. Imagine that. 40 years without any misgivings for anything that I endured. Even with the rough times, and there have been some, I have learned to become a better educator and more importantly, a better human being.
I think that bears repeating~
I have learned to become a better human being.
I won't be retiring as a rich educator even though that would be nice. Mike and I are already gearing ourselves up to learn how to pinch our pennies even tighter than we already do in the months that lie ahead. It will take some getting used to but I am sure that we can make it. I figured out long ago that teachers make very little and are woefully underpaid for the things they do and expenses they take on for the needs of their students and classrooms. Yet even in knowing that, I pressed onward because I knew that I didn't get into teaching for the money to begin with. I got into this for something far more valuable than a lucrative 401k package. My purpose in life and for getting out of bed each day has always been for one thing.
~the children~
I've been around a while. Actually make that a very long while.
When all is said and done, I will have spent considerably more than half of my life in the field of education. Actually if you look at it another way in consideration of the time spent in the classroom as a student as well as being a teacher, I've been at it since the fall term of 1960. I guess I might as well say that all of my life has been devoted to learning and sharing that knowledge with others who have called me their "teacher".
I hope in one form or another that I can still continue to learn even when my things are packed up and boxed away when the last day in the classroom finally arrives. What a shame it would be to break a streak of learning that was born in a tiny kindergarten classroom back in the small south central Kansas community of Burrton in September of long ago.
Never in my wildest of dreams did I think that I'd be a teacher for this many years. My hope was always to stay just long enough to have made a difference and then leave when I was at the top of my game. I didn't want to be the teacher who should have retired last year but did not. Having retired initially in 2010 from Kansas, my days in the classroom since then have been an even greater blessing than the many I had experienced before. Retiring and then returning to the classroom has reminded me to never take a teaching assignment for granted, something that I had done before.
I have zero regrets when I look back to the places that I've been, the students I have taught, and the families who have been such a joy to know in 4 states and 7 different school districts since 1979. Imagine that. 40 years without any misgivings for anything that I endured. Even with the rough times, and there have been some, I have learned to become a better educator and more importantly, a better human being.
I think that bears repeating~
I have learned to become a better human being.
I won't be retiring as a rich educator even though that would be nice. Mike and I are already gearing ourselves up to learn how to pinch our pennies even tighter than we already do in the months that lie ahead. It will take some getting used to but I am sure that we can make it. I figured out long ago that teachers make very little and are woefully underpaid for the things they do and expenses they take on for the needs of their students and classrooms. Yet even in knowing that, I pressed onward because I knew that I didn't get into teaching for the money to begin with. I got into this for something far more valuable than a lucrative 401k package. My purpose in life and for getting out of bed each day has always been for one thing.
~the children~
For that ONE time when I didn't read and follow directions.
I do hope that I will always be able to enjoy more times with this guy when I retire. Mike has been my greatest supporter in these past nearly 7 years since we were married. He understands that being a teacher requires many, many hours of time beyond the normal confines of a school day. He realizes that I'm a teacher in the evening, on the weekend, in aisle 7 of Walmart, every break from school, and any other time that parents and children need me. And the most awesome of things is this. He STILL loves me and the kids!
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